L.C.S. Joke of the Day: What do you give a pig with a sprained ankle?

Ant’s phone number!

(We’re getting a lot of hits from cheapskates seeking the punchlines to those goofy jokes they run just before the commercial breaks. Sooo… we figure we’ll give them _a_ punchline. Not _the_ punchline, mind you. If the bastards are too tightfisted to pay the fifty cents or the $2.99 or whatever it is, they’ll hafta be satisfied with this.)

It was the Los Angeles and Sydney auditions.

Not much else.

First– The Raw Data!

Making it through to the semifinals from Los Angeles:

Thea Vidale
Sean Rouse
Dwayne Perkins
Sarah Colonna
Jon Reep
Dante (Audience Favorite)

Making it through to the semis from Sydney:

Gina Yashere
Fiona O’Loughlin
Adam Vincent
Lawrence Mooney

And, once again, the producers couldn’t persuade any sponsor in Sydney to cough up a grand for an Audience Favorite. Or Capital One’s contract says they don’t have to fork over the dough on foreign soil. (But wouldn’t it be worth a grand just to have your company’s name mentioned that many more times?) It just makes America look cheap! How about the Jay Mohr Audience Favorite? A tribute to past hosts! Or how about the Yahoo Serious Audience Favorite Award? Or maybe Anthony Clarke could peel off ten Benjamins for the Count Shake-ula Excellence Grant?

In Hollwyood, at the Improv, the following got major face time without advancing:

Stephen Glickman
Lizzie Cooperman
Alycia Cooper

Hey, was that Craig Shoemaker in the background, onstage at the end, when they were announcing the winners? And wasn’t that Tig in the front of the pack as well? And no face time for either of them? What gives?

Ant must cease saying, “You better come back tonight and you better bring it!”

We know it’s a TV show and we know they’re cooking miles of tape down to 43 mintues or so, but the way they edit this thing, they’re making the judges look alternately inconsistent, tyrannical, simple or just plain unfair.

We know for a fact that Sean Rouse is one of the funniest comics out there. Saw him kick mighty ass at the Chicago Fest in 2000. And his set was one of the highlights of the Dave Attell special. And we thought his brief joke on tonight’s show was funny. But he had to be bleeped.

But he got through to the semis anyway.

We have no problem with that. But, mere moments before, the judges were castigating some poor auditioner for not having clean material.

And Rouse took his sweet old time getting to his punchline.

And we have no problem with that, either. But Ant and the other judges have little patience when other comics don’t get to it quickly. They were cutting other people off who took half as long as Rouse did to get through a setup.

(Sure, we know Rouse probably had “special dispensation”– management or representation that “guaranteed” (wink, wink) a spot. And we know that his rep probably preceded him. (Hell, Bodden or Madigan have probably worked with him at one point or another.)

But Mr. and Mrs. Average TV Viewer doesn’t know this stuff. Somebody is making somebody look bad. We can tolerate a lot of negatives when it comes to being in a contest. But inconsistency is just too much. And we can tolerate a lot of negatives in a reality show, but bad editing is just too much. We suppose what we’re saying is that they might take a little more care in making the playing field appear level. (Or, to put it like Det. Sipowicz, “Don’t piss on my shoes and tell me it’s raining!”) Is full disclosure necessary? No, certainly not. But this hamhanded editing and the spectacle of the judges pretending not to know other comics who have 20 years in the business is ludicrous.

We have a suggestion: Since this is a reality TV show… How about a little REALITY?!? How’s that for a novel concept?

Why is there so little real information about the comics? You’ll learn more about Sean Rouse if you merely see him introduced at a showcase in Houston. But there is not one bit of information on the comedians, other than the “hometown” they superimpose over each and what little they reveal of themselves if/when they’re interviewed on-camera. How about, “This next comic started doing standup while a student at Baylor. She moved to Los Angeles in 2005.” Anything would be better than pretending that these folks have no history whatsoever.

And those montages! They have a purpose, to be sure. It breaks things up a bit and it’s a good way to convey just how many comics are seen, etc. But, once in a while, an actual, professional, good comic ends up in one of them. It must be an embarassing moment for that act. Just because a comic makes a funny noise in a setup or a punchline, he or she has that one moment extracted and inserted into the middle of a montage with a bunch of amateurs making funny noises! What way to go! Oh, the ignominy!

What was that whole thing with Bodden and Madigan and the eye-rolling when more than one comic happened to do a bit about dating? Excuse me? We’re not just judges now, but we’re premise police are we? Sorry, but there’s going to be some overlap, judges. If you can’t distinguish between a good, well-written joke about dating and a poorly written and delivered joke about dating, then we have a problem with calling you a judge now, don’t we? Get ready for some tough days ahead– Very few of the comics have been working on their material about the Crimean War or Avogadro’s Number. (It’s 6.02 X 10 to the 23rd power, by the way. And, no, we did not peek.)

And, for Chrissakes, stop STOP playing the kid card. My kid needs shoes! My kid needs tuition! I miss my baby! I want to watch my kid grow up! Wah, wah, wah! We all know what you’re up to. It worked for Fantasia Barrino, but this is comedy, not singing. Dream up an original way of milking this sympathy thing. Stop exploiting your kid(s)! Or do it an be funny! You’re a comedian! Getting teary-eyed is not becoming!

On to Australia and the comedy club that’s way too far away and therefore probably too expensive for Mitzi Shore to sue– The Comedy Store!

(The Male Half and The Female Half actually took in a show there once, back in about 1992 or so, while visiting Sydney!)

They opened up with a reel of zany, slapsticky Aussie comics with a voiceover by Ant saying that “Australian comics must think that comedian means “court jester.” Then, for the rest of the segment from down under, they showed a strong lineup of comedians doing (for the most part) well-written, thoughtful material. Again with the inconsistency!

Other comics who got face time down under:

Michael Williams
Claire Hooper
Sam Bowring

Gina Yashere said, and we’re paraphrasing, “Working in the U.S. is every comic’s dream.” She’s right. Even comics who live here have that dream.

Claire Hooper said that there were no female comedians to watch when she was growing up. Hmmm… Either she’s 100 years old and she looks really good for her age… or, judging from the fact that three out of the seven comics that night in Sydney were female, it just plain doesn’t matter who you’re modeling yourself after.

Thea Vidale is the second (at least the second!) auditioner to have starred in his/her own ABC sitcom. (The other, of course, being Ralph Harris.) Her series ran for one season in 1993 and it was named Thea.

If you ask us, Bob Zany (seen during the credits tonight in brief clips of what must be next week’s Minneapolis auditions) should have been a judge this season! Now, that would be entertaining!

NOTE: This posting was revised at 11:15 EDT. Thanks!